A invoice to legalize marijuana in Colombia earned preliminary approval by the nation’s Chamber of Representatives on Tuesday, although it should nonetheless advance by means of extra debates earlier than doubtlessly being enacted into regulation.
The laws from Rep. Juan Carlos Losada, which might legalize hashish for adults 18 and older, handed within the second debate in a 105-33 vote. It must undergo a complete of eight debates with a view to be despatched to the Senate after which the president’s desk.
Es #HoraDeRegular Inicia en Plenaria @CamaraColombia la discusión y votación de nuestro proyecto que regula el #CannabisDeUsoAdulto.
Confiamos que este Congreso más progresista y liberal lo aprobará para así avanzar hacia un cambio en la política de drogas. pic.twitter.com/hEJNO7FrRP— Juan Carlos Losada (@JuanKarloslos) October 11, 2022
President Gustavo Petro, a progressive who has been strongly advocating for a world finish to drug criminalization since being inaugurated in August, has mentioned the potential advantages of hashish legalization.
On Tuesday, administration officers together with the heads of the Justice Ministry and Inside Ministry spoke in favor of the legalization proposal earlier than lawmakers.
Justice Minister Néstor Osuna said that what the present coverage of prohibition “ensures is that the earnings goes to the mafias and doesn’t undergo the general public treasury,” in accordance with a translation. It additionally “doesn’t remedy the issues of problematic consumption.”
La prohibición del uso del hashish nunca ha impedido su consumo. En todos los países del mundo en los que esta prohibido el consumo, el porte, la fabricación y la compra del hashish de todas maneras existe, así que se trata de una prohibición inútil: @osunanestor @MinjusticiaCo pic.twitter.com/T3B03JfvQa
— MinJusticia Colombia (@MinjusticiaCo) October 11, 2022
“This can be a authorities of change—and that change [includes] a brand new drug coverage that eliminates the drug gangs [and] the penalization of the cultivation,” the official stated.
Losada referenced latest feedback that the president delivered at a gathering of the United Nations (UN), urging member nations to essentially change their approaches to drug coverage and disband with prohibition.
“If there’s a nation that has been a sufferer of this failed battle on medicine, it’s Colombia,” the lawmaker stated.
The ground vote comes shortly after a congressional committee superior this measure and a separate legalization invoice from Rep. Carlos Ardila that features provisions to distribute tax income from hashish gross sales to particular person authorities municipalities.
#EsHoraDeRegular | Gracias a @JuanKarloslos por promover la regulación del #CannabisDeUsoAdulto y apoyar nuestra propuesta para que los municipios y departamentos se beneficien con los recursos que se recauden por el uso de #marihuana . pic.twitter.com/5V9LM5nXvM
— CARLOS ARDILA 🚩 (@CARLOSARDILA10) October 11, 2022
Ardila, who can be cosponsoring Losada’s invoice, stated that it’s “not unreasonable that what’s collected from hashish for grownup use is destined solely and solely to municipalities, districts and departments as a result of they’re those that tackle” points like public well being and security.
Losada, for his half, stated that he helps Ardila’s proposal.
One other lawmaker received some consideration on the debate on Tuesday by admitting that he’s personally used hashish for 25 years.
#Video 📹 En medio del debate en la Cámara de Representante sobre la regulación de hashish, el representante @davalho confesó que fuma marihuana hace 25 años.
🗣️”Lo que mata es la estigmatización, la ilegalidad y la falta de información”, aseguró.
👉https://t.co/alre1DIWOk pic.twitter.com/k2wbHj0zpK
— RTVC Noticias (@RTVCnoticias) October 11, 2022
“What kills is stigmatization, illegality and lack of awareness,” Rep. Daniel Carvalho stated.
It doesn’t seem that the president has explicitly endorsed both legalization invoice that’s superior in latest weeks, however the statements from Cupboard officers signifies that the reform has the administration’s help.
Because the sponsor identified, Petro informed members of the UN final month that “democracy will die” if international powers don’t unite to finish prohibition and undertake a special strategy, with thousands and thousands of lives on the road underneath the present regime.
The president stated in a separate interview final month that the US and different nations will allow a “genocide” of avoidable overdose deaths if leaders keep the established order of criminalization.
Petro additionally just lately talked concerning the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia as one technique of decreasing the affect of the illicit market. And he signaled that the coverage change must be adopted by releasing people who find themselves presently in jail over hashish.
En plenaria de @CamaraColombia se aprueba en segundo debate el proyecto que regula el hashish de uso adulto.
Esta es la forma de dar el primer paso para el cambio en la Política de Drogas, y garantizar el respeto a las libertades en 🇨🇴. #EsHoraDeRegular pic.twitter.com/pEbKY2BZfd
— MinInterior Colombia (@MinInterior) October 12, 2022
He spoke concerning the financial potential of a authorized hashish trade, one the place small cities in locations just like the Andes, Corinto and Miranda might stand to learn from authorized marijuana cultivation, probably with none licensing necessities.
The president additionally signaled that he’d be focused on exploring the thought of exporting hashish to different nations the place the plant is authorized.
In the meantime, within the Colombian Senate, a lawmaker is championing one other legalization invoice.
Sen. Gustavo Bolívar launched the measure in July, and he stated that the reform is inside attain now that the nation’s Congress has a liberal majority of lawmakers who match inside a political coalition generally known as the Historic Pact.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who chairs the Home Guidelines Committee, cheered the official swearing in of Petro , saying that he appears ahead to “working collectively to…rethink drug coverage, and rather more.”
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President Joe Biden, then again, appears intent on perpetuating the drug battle in Colombia, with US army help. He launched a memorandum to the protection secretary in August that authorizes the “interdiction of plane moderately suspected to be primarily engaged in illicit drug trafficking in that nation’s airspace.”
He stated that it’s “crucial due to the extraordinary menace posed by illicit drug trafficking to the nationwide safety of that nation” and since “Colombia has applicable procedures in place to guard towards harmless lack of life within the air and on the bottom in reference to such interdiction, which incorporates efficient means to determine and warn an plane earlier than using power is directed towards the plane.”
That stated, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint look with Petro earlier this month that the US usually backs his “holistic strategy” to medicine. The Colombian president, for his half, stated that nations must “view the battle on medicine in a different way.”
As a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, Petro has seen the violent battle between guerrilla fighters, narcoparamilitary teams and drug cartels that has been exacerbated by the federal government’s aggressive strategy to drug enforcement.
In response to the United Nations Workplace of Drug Management Coverage (ONDCP), Colombia stays a chief exporter of cocaine, regardless of “drug provide discount actions in Colombia, similar to eradication of coca bush and destruction of laboratories.”
In 2020, Colombian legislators launched a invoice that will have regulated coca, the plant that’s processed to provide cocaine, in an acknowledgment that the federal government’s decades-long struggle towards the drug and its procedures have persistently failed. That laws cleared a committee, but it surely was finally shelved by the general conservative legislature.
Advocates are optimistic that such a proposal might advance underneath the Petro administration. The president hasn’t taken a transparent stance on the laws itself, however he campaigned on legalizing marijuana and promoted the thought of hashish as a substitute for cocaine.
Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has additionally been important of the drug battle and embraced reform. In an editorial revealed earlier than he left workplace, he criticized the United Nations and US President Richard Nixon for his or her position in setting a drug battle customary that has confirmed ineffective at finest and counterproductive at worst.
“It’s time we discuss accountable authorities regulation, search for methods to chop off the drug mafias’ air provide, and deal with the issues of drug use with higher assets for prevention, care and hurt discount with regard to public well being and the social material ,” he stated.
“This reflection should be international in scope with a view to be efficient,” Santos, who’s a member of the pro-reform International Fee on Drug Coverage, stated. “It should even be broad, together with participation not solely of governments but additionally of academia and civil society. It should attain past regulation enforcement and judicial authorities and contain specialists in public well being, economists and educators, amongst different disciplines.”
Picture courtesy of Brian Shamblen.